John McCormack at Christmas

The great tenor John McCormack (1884-1945) made surprisingly few Christmas records - or even discs that are vaguely related to the holiday. Even so, I've managed to corral 12 sides of interest from the collection at Internet Archive, and cleaned them up for this post.

McCormack made quite a number of records with violinist Fritz Kreisler from 1914-17, including the first four in this set, all of which come from March 1914 sessions.

Fritz Kreisler

The first is the Berceuse from Jocelyn, an opera by the French Romantic composer Benjamin Godard. The Berceuse, or lullaby, is often called "Angels Guard Thee" in English and is associated with the Christmas season even though Jocelyn takes place during Corpus Christi.

For these sessions, McCormack, Kreisler and pianist Vincent O'Brien also programmed three different settings of "Ave Maria" - the well-known versions associated with Schubert and Bach-Gounod, and a lesser-known example with music by the verismo composer Pietro Mascagni.

A few words of explanation. Schubert's "Ave Maria" is actually an adaptation of the composer's "Ellens dritter Gesang," which begins with the words "Ave Maria." Schubert himself did not set the entire "Ave Maria" prayer; the balance was added by other hands later on. The so-called Bach-Gounod "Ave Maria" was Gounod's setting of the prayer text to Bach's Prelude No. 1 from The Well-Tempered Clavier. And the Mascagni version is based on the well-known Intermezzo from his opera Cavalleria Rusticana.

These 1914 recordings are all, of course, acoustics with limited frequency response. However, it proved possible to elicit a clear vocal tone from the 78s, and Kreisler's violin comes across very well.

McCormack produced the first of his two recordings of "Adeste Fideles" in 1915, accompanied by an orchestra, chimes and a vocal trio.

The vastly superior electrical recording format came along in 1925. The following year Victor had McCormack return to its Camden, NJ, studios to re-record "Adeste Fideles" with the new technology. This time he was accompanied by an orchestra and the Trinity Choir conducted by Rosario Bourdon. 

Later that same year, McCormack recorded "The Holy Child," also known as "Away in a Manger." He uses the setting by William J. Kirkpatrick. (The James Ramsey Murray setting is more often heard around these parts.) Nathaniel Shilkret conducted the orchestra.

In 1927, McCormack recorded the César Franck setting of "Panis angelicus," from the composer's Messe à trois voix. "Panis angelicus" was written by Thomas Aquinas for Corpus Christi, but again it is also associated with the Christmas season. Nathaniel Shilkret conducted this session.

Gerald Moore

McCormack had moved back to Ireland from the US in 1927. The final four recordings in this set all were made in London. In 1930, he set down a fourth version of "Ave Maria," this one by the German Romantic composer Peter Cornelius. The accompaniment is by a string quartet and organist Herbert Dawson.

In 1935, McCormack was at Abbey Road with longtime accompanist Edwin Schneider to record an arrangement of "Little Child of Mary" by H.T. Burleigh.

McCormack continued to record fairly regularly into 1942, including two Christmas songs in October 1940, both with Gerald Moore, who had succeeded Schneider upon the latter's retirement.

His first selection was "Silent Night," followed by "See Amid the Winter's Snow." The tune for the latter is unidentified, but The John McCormack Discography notes that it is different from the one of John Goss included in The New Oxford Book of Carols.

By the time of these last recordings, McCormack's voice had lost some of its luster and range, and, suffering from emphysema, he no longer had the all his legendary vocal control. But these late numbers are still cherishable, as are all the items in this set.

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